Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky's triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.

What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?

Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood – that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar,
City of Long Shadows.
City of Bad Decisions.
City of Last Chances.

Quem herdará esta nova Terra?

Os últimos sobreviventes da raça humana abandonaram uma Terra em ruínas, desesperados para encontrar um novo lar entre as estrelas. Seguindo os passos de seus antepassados, eles descobrem o maior tesouro da era passada: um planeta terraformado e preparado para a vida humana. Entretanto, nem tudo é perfeito no novo Éden.

Há muito tempo inexplorado, o planeta seguiu um curso inesperado e não mais aguarda pelos humanos em paz silenciosa. Novos habitantes o dominaram, estruturando uma nova sociedade e transformando o último refúgio da humanidade em seu próprio lar.

Agora, duas civilizações estão em rota de colisão, ambas testando os limites do que farão para sobreviver, e um conflito parece iminente e inevitável. Com os seus destinos interligados pendendo por um fio, resta a derradeira pergunta: Quem são os reais herdeiros dessa nova Terra?

The bold new work from award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky — a smart, funny tale of time-travel and paradox.

Welcome to the end of time. It’s a perfect day.

Nobody remembers how the Causality War started. Really, there’s no-one to remember, and nothing for them to remember if there were; that’s sort of the point. We were time warriors, and we broke time.

I was the one who ended it. Ended the fighting, tidied up the damage as much as I could.

Then I came here, to the end of it all, and gave myself a mission: to never let it happen again.

Alien Clay is a thrilling far-future adventure by acclaimed Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky.

‘Unputdownable’ – Stephen Baxter, author of Proxima

They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind . . .

Professor Arton Daghdev has always wanted to study alien life in person. But when his political activism sees him exiled to the planet Kiln, condemned to work under an unfamiliar sky until he dies, his idealistic wish becomes a terrible reality.

Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem. Its monstrous alien life means Arton will risk death on a daily basis – if the camp’s oppressive regime doesn’t kill him first. But, if he survives, Kiln’s lost civilization holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it – and might just set him free.

‘A warning for a future we don’t want . . . Highly recommended’ – Tade Thompson

‘An excellent story told with Adrian’s trademark skill and flair’ – James Oswald

‘An intriguing puzzle with plenty of thrills’ – The Guardian

A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?